Monday, January 27, 2014

Professor Emerita of Anthropology and Gender Studies, as well as former Co-Chair of Islamic Studies at UCLA, and past Co-Founder and Co-editor of The Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, Dr. Sondra Hale’s dynamic career has always been spirited with a deep sense of activism. Dr. Hale, an alumna of UCLA, received her B.A. in English Literature, M.A. in African Studies, and Ph.D. in Anthropology, and has taught at the University of Khartoum (Sudan), California Institute of the Arts, and at California State Universities at Long Beach and Northridge.

In her Oral history exchange with WSMALA, Hale attributes much of her early social justice zeal, particularly in matters of racial politics and gender equality, to her mother, Norma Badger. Married at the mere age of 16, Hale explains, her mother was a pioneer against prejudice within her bigoted surroundings. She cultivated an early and deep sense of activism within Sondra and pushed her far beyond the rigid walls of American society, late 1930s onwards. She recalls, “For a white woman living in Des Moines, Iowa, she had very, very clear progressive race politics, although her parents were bigots.” Her mother, valued economic independence and thus, worked to achieve a white-collar job as a radio station Traffic Manager, a rarity for her time. Hale credits her enamor with education to her mother, who had convinced Sondra that going to school would someday become her career.

During her time at UCLA, Sondra met and eventually married UCLA Geographer, Gerry Hale. Together, they ventured to Sudan, where she has since dedicated over 50 years of her life to research and personal pursuits. The couple’s interest in East Africa inspired their two Eritrean daughters’ adoption. “Negotiating the terrain of [her] transracial family,” Hale explains, has necessitated considerable time and energy. The Hale family is thus, indicative of the activism, which Sondra demonstrates in her professional life. “Sondra’s life has had four components running simultaneously [throughout]: activism and service to the community; academic teaching, research and writing; activism and creative writing and curatorial projects in the arts; and family life.”

Author of Gender Politics in Sudan: Islamism, Socialism, and the State (1996, translated into Arabic in 2011), amongst many other notable works, Hale’s issues of interests include: “gendered war, conflict, and genocide; social movements; international gender studies; gender and citizenship; diaspora studies; cultural studies, and boycotts and academic freedom.” Her regional interests include Africa and the Middle East, focusing mainly on Sudan and Eritrea. Dr. Hale’s passion for writing also shines through in topics surrounding feminist art. Her book, From Site to Vision: The Los Angeles Woman’s Building in Contemporary Culture (2011), was written in conjunction with ‘Doin' It in Public: Feminism and Art at the Woman's Building.’ Together, the work “comprises an exhibition, two scholarly publications, and series of public events that document, contextualize and pay tribute to the groundbreaking work of feminist artists and art cooperatives that were centered in and around the Los Angeles Woman's Building (downtown L.A.) in the 1970s and 1980s.”

Describing herself as an “activist academic” Professor Hale co-founded Feminists in Support of Palestinian Women, the Darfur Task Force, California Scholars for Academic Freedom, and the U.S. Committee for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. Her robust sense of activism also takes form in various anti-war/anti-occupation activities (Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon), and civil rights/human rights issues.

In addition to various teaching awards Dr. Hale was awarded the Fair and Open Academic Environment Award from UCLA (popularly known as the “diversity award”) and has received numerous awards from National Science Foundation, American Association of University Women, National Endowment for the Humanities, Fulbright, and several others for her philanthropic endeavors. In 2011, Sondra Hale was awarded the Life-Time Scholarly Achievement Award from the Association for Middle East Women’s Studies, and an award “In Recognition and Appreciation of Her 50 Years of Commitment and Valuable Contributions in Support of the Sudanese Women’s Movement” from Salmmah Women’s Resource Center in Khartoum, Sudan.

Dr. Sondra Hale will be a panelist at the Celebrating Los Angeles' Women's Social Movements on February 24, 2014 at UCLA.

--Radhika Mehlotra

Radhika Mehlotra is a first-year MPP student at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and a Graduate Student Researcher at the UCLA CSW

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

A Distinguished Professor Emerita of Higher Education, Senior Scholar at the Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA, and psychologist, Dr. Helen Astin is widely known for her scholarly activism and research concerning higher education issues of women and minority students, as well as women’s career development. She began her career at UCLA in 1973, and contributed in several different capacities until her retirement from the University in 2002.

Born in Serres, Greece, in 1932, and having survived World War II, Dr. Astin’s early inclination towards science and math were discouraged due to the subjects’ association with male careers, specifically. However, the alternative option, teacher’s college, proved to become a transformative choice for Astin’s professional trajectory. Upon college completion, she moved to the United States to pursue her interest in Psychology via higher education in 1951. Her move eventually brought her to Ohio University in Athens, OH, were she earned her Master’s in Psychology, and then to University of Maryland for her PhD. At the University of Maryland, “she became the second woman to earn her PhD in psychology.” Such a rarity within her graduate program heightened her awareness surrounding educational sexism, and inspired Astin’s professional interest in studying women in higher education. She recalls in her oral history, “…that’s when I saw sexism really; the first time I encountered it. And I didn’t understand it.” And added, “I was the second woman in the whole program to get the PhD. So you can see that in those days, there were not many women, which prompted me later on to study women with doctorates.”

After marrying a fellow graduate student, Alexander Astin, Helen worked with the Commission on Human Resources and Higher Education as part of the National Academy of Science starting in the 1960s. Here, “she investigated talent development and the utilization of women in the workforce,” and gained much recognition in conjunction with the women’s sociopolitical movement in the United States. In 1970, Astin was tasked to chair the American Psychological Association’s (APA) Task Force on the Status of Women in Psychology. In 1973 both Alexander and Helen were offered professorships at UCLA. During her 29 year affiliation with UCLA, Helen Astin, in addition to her professorship, served as the Associate Provost of the College of Letters and Science at UCLA from 1983 to 1987, co-founded the UCLA Center for the Study of Women in 1989 with fellow faculty Nancy Henley, Anne Peplau, Kathryn Sklar, and Karen Rowe, and served as the founding director for the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA.

In addition to her UCLA ties, Astin served as a trustee of Mt. St. Mary's College since 1985, a trustee of Hampshire College from 1972 to 1979, served on the Board of Governors of the Center for Creative Leadership, and on the Board of the National Council for Research on Women. In the American Psychological Association, Dr. Astin served on the Boards of Policy and Planning and Education and Training and has been president of the Division of the Psychology of Women. She has also served as Chair of the Board of the American Association for Higher Education. Helen Astin is also a “recipient of three honorary degrees and numerous other awards including the Howard Bowen Distinguished Career award from the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE).”

“Dr. Astin's major books include: Women of Influence, Women of Vision; Human Resources and Higher Education; The Woman Doctorate in America; Higher Education and the Disadvantaged Student; Some Action of Her Own: The Adult Woman and Higher Education; Sex Discrimination in Career Counseling and Education; The Higher Education of Women: Essays in Honor of Rosemary Park.” Her current research interest lies in Spirituality in Higher Education, which has led her to “coauthor a monograph on the Meaning and Spirituality in the Lives of College Faculty, two reports (The Spiritual Life of College Students, Spirituality and The Professoriate), and a book entitled Cultivating the Spirit: How College can Enhance Students’ Inner Lives (Jossey-Bass, 2011).”

Dr. Helen Astin will be a panelist at the Celebrating Los Angeles' Women's Social Movements on February 24, 2014 at UCLA.

--Radhika Mehlotra

Radhika Mehlotra is a graduate student at the Luskin School of Public Affairs and a Graduate Student Researcher at CSW.